DYSENTERY.

It is undoubtedly true that Hahnemann has revealed to us the means of

surpassing in this disease the all[oe]opathic wisdom of a thousand

years, by a far more successful, safe and expeditious treatment.

Nevertheless, much remains to be desired in this dreaded disease. Who

does not know that medicinal aggravations are particularly to be

dreaded in this malady? Who has not often felt embarrassed to select the

right remedy among three or four that seemed indicated by the symptoms,

and where it was nevertheless important, in view of the threatening

danger, to select at once the right remedy? Who has not been struck by

the strange irregularity that in a disease which generally sets in as an

epidemic, different remedies are often indicated by different groups of

symptoms? Who has not become convinced after a careful observation of

the course of the disease, that nothing is more deceptive than the

pretended curative virtues of corrosive sublimate in dysentery, and that

it is a matter of duty to be mindful, in this very particular, of the

warning words of the master who, having himself been deceived at one

time by the delusive palliation of mercury, addresses to us the

remarkable warning that "mercury, so far from responding to all

non-venereal maladies, on the contrary is one of the most deceitful

palliatives the temporary action of which is not only soon followed by a

return of the original symptoms of disease, but even by a return of

these symptoms in an aggravated form." (See Hahnemann's Chronic

Diseases, Vol. II.)

This delusive palliation is more particularly one of the effects of

corrosive sublimate in Dysentery; and is exceedingly dangerous in this

disease. Hence we warn practitioners against this danger.

We feel so much the more grateful to the principle Similia Similibus,

which, even though it did not protect its discoverer from faulty

applications, yet finally led us to the discovery of the right remedy

for dysentery.

No.'s 590 and 599 in the American Provings, read as follows: "Violent

tenesmus; nausea, vomiting and diarrh[oe]a, first lumpy and not fetid,

afterwards watery and fetid, lastly papescent, mixed with blood and

mucus, and attended with tenesmus; afterwards dysenteric stools, with

tenesmus and sensation as if the bowels were crushed;" combining these

symptoms with the general character of Apis, particularly the

circumstance that not only the ordinary precursors and first symptoms of

dysentery, but also its terminations and its sequelæ, and its most

important complications find their approved remedy in Apis; all this

shows us that Apis is a natural remedy for dysentery. This truth is

abundantly confirmed by experience. All my previously obtained results

in practice, testify to the correctness of this statement.

At the very commencement of the disease, a globule of Apis 3 is

sufficient to cut short the disease so that the patient feels easy, and

sleeps quietly. During this slumber, fever, pain and tenesmus disappear,

and the patient wakes with a feeling of health. If this should not take

place in three hours, owing to the more advanced state of the disease,

another dose of Apis is required, after which the patient soon feels

well.

If the dysenteric disease has had a chance to localize itself, and to

assume a higher degree of intensity, it becomes necessary to excite the

organic reaction all the more frequently. Under these circumstances we

repeat the medicine every hour, or every two or three hours, one globule

at a time, until all further medication has become unnecessary.

It is well known that epidemic diarrh[oe]a, viz., a diarrh[oe]a

resulting from peculiar alterations of the normal condition of the

atmosphere, earth, water, indispensable food, or from other still

unknown elementary influences inevitably acting upon every body,

commences in the form of a simple, apparently unimportant diarrh[oe]a;

that it gradually increases in intensity as the processes of nutrition

and sanguification become more deeply disturbed, and that it finally

terminates in life-destroying cholera. All these different stages of

diarrh[oe]a, whether with or without vomiting, watery or papescent, of

one color or another, with or without pain, with or without fever, have

yielded readily, safely and thoroughly to Apis in my hands. I must

except, however, cholera of the epidemic form, where I have not yet been

able to try Apis for want of opportunity. As far as my personal

observations go, I am disposed to affirm that the best mode of effecting

a good result, is to give Apis 3 and Aconite 3, in alternation, one drop

of each preparation well shaken in a bottle containing twelve

tablespoonfuls of water, and giving a tablespoonful every hour or three

hours, if the danger is great, and in milder cases a full drop

alternately morning and evening. This treatment is continued until an

improvement sets in, after which the organic reaction is permitted to

develope itself, which will terminate in a few hours or days, according

as the disease is more or less violent, and assistance was sought more

or less early, in the perfect recovery of the patient.

This end is not always attained with equal certainty and rapidity, if

Apis is not given in alternation with Aconite. In such a case, Apis

alone often develops a powerful reaction, which is avoided by the

alternate use of Aconite. Wherever the case is urgent, and it is

important to shorten the durations of the organic reaction, the two

remedies should be given in alternation. In most cases I have seen a few

alternate doses give rise to a pleasant perspiration, speedily followed

by quiet sleep and recovery on waking. May we not expect the same result

at the commencement of Asiatic cholera, and thus arrest the further

development of the disease?

Apis is no less effectual against _chronic diarrh[oe]a_, more

particularly if resulting, not from any deep-seated disorganizations,

but from some permanent inflammatory irritation of the intestinal mucous

membrane, and which causes and fosters so much distress, by rendering

all normal digestion impossible and finally bringing on its inseparable

companion, the last degree of hypochondria. This misery is so much more

lamentable, as it is, so to say, forced upon mankind from the cradle to

the grave by the still prevailing and almost ineradicable delusion of

_cathartic medication_.

Scarcely has the little being seen the light of the world, when the

process of purgation begins. Nurse, aunt, grandmamma, everybody, hasten

to hush the cries which the rough contact of the outer world extorts

from the little being, by forcing down its throat a little laxative

mixture, and the family-physician, who goes by fashion, approves of all

this. It is his habit, in after-life, to combat every little

costiveness, every digestive derangement, every incipient disease, by

means of his cathartic mixture, and his skill is considered

proportionate to the quantity of stuff which the bowels expel under the

operation of his drugs. Laxative pills, rhubarb, glauber-salts,

bitter-waters, aloes, gin, etc., etc., are in every body's hands, and

become an increasing necessity for millions. An ancient prejudice

decrees that, to permit a single day to pass by without stool, would be

to expose one's life to the greatest danger. Every year we see thousands

rush to warm and cold springs that have the reputation of being

possessed with dissolvent and cathartic properties. Those who cannot

afford to go to the springs, use artificial mineral water in order to

accomplish similar purposes. Very seldom a disease is met with, that is

permitted to run its course without dissolvent or cathartic means. It is

still a profitable business to sell patent purgatives, such as cider in

which a little magnesia has been dissolved.

Everybody feels how offensive these things are to nature; how they

attack the stomach and bowels; how they derange digestion and nutrition;

how slowly patients recover from the effects of such drugs; how chronic

abdominal affections, after having been eased for a while by such drugs,

soon return again with redoubled vigor; how the dose has to be increased

in order to obtain the same result; how the intervals of relief becomes

shorter and shorter, and how, in the end, the stomach is totally ruined,

and the abnormal irritation and paralysis of this viscus, with the

diarrh[oe]a and constipation, corresponding to these conditions,

gradually lead to the complete derangement of the reproductive process.

In spite of all this, long habit has secured to these pernicious customs

a sort of prescriptive right. The distress consequent upon them,

increases in proportion as the reactive powers of the organism decrease,

which is more particularly the case in the present generation. The

suppression of these abuses has never been more necessary than in our

age. Indeed, the old proverb is again verified: "Where need is greatest,

there help is nearest."

The world is not only indebted to Hahnemann for a knowledge, but also

for a natural corrective of this serious abuse. His provings on healthy

persons show this beyond a doubt. Few men, if their attention has once

been directed to this abuse, will feel disposed to deny its extent. Nor

has a favorable change in this respect been looked for in vain, since

hom[oe]opathy has now, for half a century at least, shown the

uselessness of all regular methods of purgation, and the superiority of

the means with which this new system accomplishes most effectually all

that those pernicious methods promised to do. It should be considered a

duty by every physician, to be acquainted with the new means of cure.

The continued use of purgatives should be considered a crime against

health. They will soon cease to exist as regular means of treatment, and

their pernicious consequences will no longer have to be relieved by

remedial means. But until their use is abolished, we shall have to

counteract them by adequate means of cure, more particularly the

abnormal irritation and the paralytic debility, which are the most

common consequences of the abuse of cathartics.

It is a most fortunate thing that we have in Apis one of the most

reliable means of removing the evil effects of cathartic medicines. A

single globule of Apis 30 is sufficient to this end. It is best to use

it as follows: dissolve the globule in five tablespoonfuls of water by

shaking the mixture well in a well closed vial, and let the patient take

a tablespoonful of this solution. If this dose acts well, no repetition

is necessary for the present. If this dose should not be sufficient, we

prepare a new potence by throwing away three tablespoonfuls of the

former solution and substituting four tablespoonfuls of fresh water,

shaking the mixture well. We give a spoonful of this second solution,

twenty-four hours after the first had been given, and, if necessary, a

third spoonful prepared in the same way, and even a fourth and fifth,

after which we await the result, without thinking either of improvement

or exacerbation.

Generally, a feeling of ease is experienced shortly after taking Apis.

The painful sensitiveness of the pit of the stomach and of the abdomen,

together with the troublesome, disagreeable and oppressive distention

and weight, soon disappear; the tongue gradually loses its swollen and

cracked appearance, its dirty redness, its slimy coating, its sore

spots, tardy indentations along its edges, the burnt feeling at its tip,

which is dotted with very fine vesicles, that cause a good deal of

soreness; the pappy, sour, bitter, metallic, foul taste disappears; the

appetite is again normal; both the previous aversion to food and the

excessive craving disappear; the absence of thirst, which is so common

in this condition, again gives place to a natural desire for drink, the

bluish-red color and swelling of the palate and throat, and the

incessant urging to hawk, decrease visibly: the distress after eating;

the sour stomach with or without nausea or heartburn; the excessive

rising of air; the regurgitation of the ingesta; the eructations which

taste of the food that had been eaten long before; the yawning; the

irresistible drowsiness when sitting; the general loss of strength; the

vacuity of mind, the aversion to talking and to company, decrease more

and more every day; the whole abdomen feels easier and softer: the

excessive and irresistible urging to urinate, especially after rising

from a chair or from bed, and accompanied by a distressing nervousness,

abates; the diarrh[oe]ic and abnormally colored evacuations, together

with the frequent and irresistible urging, increased after eating, early

in the morning and after sour and flatulent food, and accompanied by

various sore pains in the rectum, diminish more and more, and give place

to normal evacuations, first for days, next for weeks, although they

continue to alternate more or less with constipation, or painful,

insufficient, hard stool, until they terminate sooner or later,

according as the disease is more or less deep-seated, and had lasted

more or less long, in permanent restoration of the normal secretions and

excretions of the digestive organs. At the same time the many distresses

which the abnormal condition of the bowels and stomach had occasioned in

the head and heart, disappear; the poor patient who had been a prey to

so many sufferings, feels like one born again.

This is the general result, unless psoric, sycosic, syphilitic or

vaccinine complications should be present. Unfortunately the abuse of

cathartics excites these miasms if they exist in the organism, and at

the same time prostrates the reactive powers of the organism, and

enables its enemies to rise against it. The distress becomes more and

more complicated; disorganizations, alterations of the fluids,

disturbances of the assimilative sphere, nervous derangements from

simple illusions of the sentient sphere, and occasional trembling and

twitching, to spasmodic and convulsive movements, and final extinction

of nervous power, marasmus of the spinal marrow or a ramollissement of

the brain; these are the consequences of such miasmatic complications.

In such a case Apis alone is not sufficient. We have to employ such

antidotes as _Sulphur_, our most powerful anti-psoric which, unless it

had been abused previously, never leaves us in the lurch in the presence

of psora; _iodine_ which, under similar circumstances, becomes

indispensable wherever psora and sycosis are combined; _bichromate of

potash_ or _fluoric acid_, if psora, syphilis and mercurial poisoning

are united; and lastly, _tartar emetic_, or again _fluoric acid_, if the

vaccine poison alone, or in combination with the other poisons, occupies

the foreground.

This is not the place to treat of these special forms of human distress,

and to individualize their treatment; I shall endeavor to do this on a

more suitable occasion. I shall have to limit myself here to a

superficial sketch of the treatment, adding merely that a single dose of

the specific antidote will act best if given highly potentized, and that

the improvement should afterwards be allowed to progress as long as a

trace of it remains visible. But as soon as the improvement stops and an

exacerbation sets in, which is not speedily followed by another

improvement, or which seems to require our aid, we use Apis 3, one drop

every day, until the improvement is again perceived, after which we wait

until another exacerbation demands our interference. One dose of Apis is

often insufficient; if not, from three to five doses will be found

sufficient to mitigate the pains, and to advance the cure which Apis

will complete in conjunction with the high potency that should not be

repeated, and which is not interfered with by the Apis. What more

precious boon for the physician and patient in these serious moments? It

is only a physician who has instituted provings upon himself, that is

capable of comprehending this harmonious blending of the two therapeutic

agents. He sees the well known effects of a well known cause go and come

at alternate periods. What man of common sense would be willing to

repudiate such evidence?

But even in a case where Sulphur and Iodine had been given to excess,

and a sort of Sulphur and Iodine diathesis had been established in

consequence, Apis is still the best remedy to meet this complicated

derangement.

Although we may believe that the time is at hand when this kind of

ignorance shall no longer be tolerated, it unfortunately is still a

prevailing sin of the profession. Even if we should be unable to effect

a perfect cure, yet we may afford essential relief to such patients; we

may often arrest their sufferings for a longer or shorter period, and

shorten the paroxysms until they become almost imperceptible. Apis is

particularly instrumental in effecting this end. Diseases of the